Psychologically, customers for dispensed beverages prefer their beverage “fresh brewed.” For example, most consumers prefer fresh brewed tea, rather than tea that is mixed upon dispensing. That is to say, tea that is mixed upon dispensing (syrup and water mixing when the drink is being dispensed) is less preferred than tea dispensed as brewed (pre-mixed).
However, pre-mixed beverages have a limited shelf-life. While the customer prefers, generally, pre-mixed beverages, those pre-mixed beverages must be fresh due to their limited shelf life. Circumstances often dictate that freshness is not achievable and post-mix dispensing is called for.
Thus, utility would be achieved in providing an assembly for dispensing that gave the appearance of dispensing a pre-mix fluid, yet in fact was dispensing a post-mixed beverage.
Most consumers are familiar with an urn, such as an urn for containing tea or coffee or other pre-mixed beverage, which urn has a generally “T”-shaped faucet or valve, which may be near the middle or top of the urn. The “T”-shaped faucet or valve may have a leg, and two arms coming off the leg, the leg for providing fluid communication to the liquid in the urn, one arm coming up from the leg providing a pivoting valve or handle, which the user pivots typically forward to provide flow from the descending arm of the “T” valve or “T” faucet.
The average consumer is familiar with the use of the single urn with a single manual T valve for dispensing pre-mixed beverages, such as tea or coffee, therefrom. Psychologically, the single valve, single urn assembly triggers a connection in the user's mind that they are obtaining a pre-mixed (and therefore presumably fresh) beverage.
On the other hand, consumers are also familiar with a post-mix dispensing unit, such as those often found in movie theaters or fastfood establishments, wherein as many as a half dozen different soda flavors, each with its own valve and lever, are provided with ice and wherein the user puts it under the selected beverage choice and urges the cup against the lever. Using these units, the consumer here knows he is not getting pre-mixed beverages, as he can often see the mixing occur right at the nozzle and as the syrup and carbonated water flow into the cup.
Most post-mix dispensers appear to be exactly what they are and do not endeavor to disguise the fact that the drink is not pre-mixed. However, at least from a psychological point of view, benefits are available in providing the convenience of post-mixed beverage with the appearance of pre-mixed coming from an urn or urns.
Post-mix valves are known in the art to provide for mixing of a first fluid and a second fluid after the two fluids have been valved and are flowing, for example, in bar guns. The post-mix dispensing valves known in the art, however, typically provide for pistons or stems in which the upstream pressurized fluid works against the spring or the closure mechanisms in the valve. That is to say, prior art valves are arranged such that the upstream valved fluid will be working to unseat the stem or piston controlling the flow of the pressurized fluid between upstream and downstream of the valve.
Further, post-mix valves known in the art typically do not mix a first and second fluid in the nozzle from a “T” or Tea valve. The term Tea or “T” valve generally refers to a valve having the configuration of handle, body, nozzle along a vertical axis with fluid lines coming into this assembly horizontally between the handle and nozzle (see FIGS. 9A and 9A).